It’s a message Mitch Keller has been eager to send.
No, not necessarily anything pitching-wise, though Keller has been doing plenty of that over the past 11 months.
More to text Rays pitcher Tyler Glasnow and see how he’s doing, catching up with an old friend, someone to whom Keller has been compared in the past.
“It was good coming up through the minor leagues with him and seeing him throughout spring training the past few years,” said Keller, who has previously chatted with Glasnow on how to harness his talent. “It’s always good to catch up with Glass.”
Keller’s turnaround won’t be the only thing the two have to discuss.
Pittsburgh’s three-game series in Tampa will feature MLB’s two best teams so far this season, one at least somewhat expected (the Rays) and the other (the Pirates) ... well, not so much.
Buoyed by winning 10 of their past 12, outscoring opponents by 53 runs (90-37) during the stretch, the Pirates are enjoying their best start since 1992, when they were 21-8 through 29 games.
The Rays stacked a modern era record-tying 13 consecutive wins to start the season. They’ve been MLB’s best in pretty much every meaningful stat and already have an absurd plus-103 run differential.
“We’re both really good teams,” Connor Joe said. “I’m excited. It’s a big challenge for us, and we’ve really faced challenges head on this year. It’s gonna be some good baseball.”
As a pitcher, Keller knows the threat the Rays pose. It’s most readily found in the home run. With four more Sunday, the Rays have clobbered 61 on the season. They also lead the major leagues with only 19 allowed.
Entering Sunday, the Rays’ previous total of 57 tied the 2019 Mariners for the second-most through a club’s 28 games (since 1901), trailing only the Mark McGwire and Jim Edmonds-driven 2000 Cardinals (62).
“They’re off to a really good start,” Keller said. “They have a really good lineup and really good pitching. I know as a team we’re excited to face them and see where we stack up.”
The Rays, of course, aren’t the only team in this matchup with some incredible numbers. In fact, let’s use 20 to quantify the Pirates’ start, one for each win.
1. An MLB-high 18 quality starts, including 11 in a row at one point. If this would hold, the Pirates would finish with 101 on the season — the most since the Astros (105) in 2018.
2. The Pirates also lead MLB in stolen bases with 41, a half-dozen more than anyone else and their best month since September/October 1985.
3. Pittsburgh’s team OPS, second-worst in MLB in 2022 (.657), had jumped all the way to third this season at .792 entering Monday’s games.
4. Similar stuff in runs, where the Pirates have gone from 27th (591) to fourth (156).
5. Want clutch? The Pirates are the best in the National League and No. 3 in MLB when it comes to batting average with runners in scoring position (.311).
6. Flip it over. Entering Monday, their pitchers were sixth in batting average against (.222) with runners in scoring position.
7. Bryan Reynolds finished April with 23 RBIs, tied for fourth-most in an opening month in Pirates history. Reynolds didn’t get his 23rd RBI last year until June 23.
8. Pirates lead MLB in saves with 13, while David Bednar has been flat-out dominant: 2-0, 0.69 ERA in 13 games (13 innings), walking one and striking out 17.
9. Only two teams, none in the NL, have more than Pittsburgh’s 128 total bases.
10. Remember when Pirates hitters chased constantly? They now have MLB’s second-best chase rate (24.1%) behind the Dodgers.
11. No hitter in MLB has swung at a lower percentage of pitches out of the strike zone than Joe (14.6%), who has a .962 OPS.
12. A few categories where Jack Suwinski ranks in the 90th percentile or higher: average exit velocity (92.9 mph, 92nd), walk rate (16.7%, 95th), expected slugging (.634, 98th) and chase rate (14.9, 99th).
13. Suwinski’s 1.011 OPS ranks 10th-best among MLB hitters with 70 or plate appearances. Those numbers among qualifiers since April 11: 1.211, fourth.
14. Andrew McCutchen’s OPS during his first nine seasons as a Pirate: .866. That mark in 2023: .830.
15. Skewed some by small sample size, but still, Jason Delay has a 1.045 OPS, best among MLB catchers.
16. Their strikeout percentage has gone from the second-highest (25.3%) to the sixth-lowest (20.5%), while the Pirates walk rate has jumped from 15th (8.1%) up to fifth (10.1%).
17. Ever hear of power-speed number, or PSN? It’s a Bill James stat focused on homers and steals that uses the harmonic mean, for any math nerds out there. The point: The Pirates (37.2) are first, and the Rays (35.5) are second.
18. Individually, the Pirates have four of the top 17: Suwinski (5.5), Reynolds (5.0), McCutchen (4.4) and Bae (3.4).
19. Pittsburgh’s team ERA sits at 3.55 (seventh). Starters are tied for the MLB lead since April 11 (2.85), but overall, the bullpen ranks seventh at 3.10.
20. The Pirates have three series sweeps this season. Or one fewer than the previous two seasons combined.
Jason Mackey: jmackey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @JMackeyPG.
First Published: May 1, 2023, 2:45 p.m.
Updated: May 1, 2023, 7:07 p.m.
